Click here to see the full roster of talks and to register
The Yale Forest Forum (YFF) has a free spring speaker series underway, hosted by The Forests Dialogue and the Urban Resources Initiative, on The Promise and Practice of Community-Based Forestry. Join the series every Thursday through April 29 from 11:30am-12:10pm ET. (Note that there will be no webinar on April 8.) YFF talks are free and open to the public.
This Thursday, February 18th, Yale School of the Environment URI GreenSkills Manager Caroline Scanlan presents on “A University Model for Clinical Urban Community Forestry Training.” You can read about Caroline’s work in her recently published paper in Arboriculture & Urban Forestry.
More about the series:
Community-based forestry intends to create pathways for local people to have decision-making control of forest management. The key strategy of community-based forestry is to equitably empower all local stakeholders through a long-term, landscape-based, and inclusive approach to supporting local communities to secure their land and resource rights, stop deforestation, find alternative livelihoods, and foster gender equity.
Key community stakeholders include historically marginalized groups such as Indigenous people and ethnic minorities, as well as those who have geographic, economic, social, and cultural relationships with their local forests. Small holders and family forest owners are important parts of community forestry models as well. The Community Based Natural Resource Management paradigm places natural resource protection and management responsibility with the local people in exchange for a sharing of the benefits derived from that protection and sustainable management.
Speakers will describe their personal and organizational experience with community forestry, the benefits of this inclusive approach, and address challenges to ensure equitable participation and sustainable forest management. ?